Medical weight loss

For better weight management there are certain healthy items you can add to your diet to maximize weight loss efforts for long term success. Maintain your weight loss results and rev up your metabolism with some of these helpful tips:

1. Protein Power – It’s hopefully common knowledge by now that eating foods with high protein content helps your body to burn more calories during digestion. It may be beneficial to include a lean protein source in every meal (unless you’re using meal replacements for medical weight loss). Lean protein sources can include anything from beans to chicken and fish or peanut butter. These items will help you and your metabolism to stay energized and fueled throughout your busy day.
2. Try Drinking Green Tea – If you aren’t already a fan of green tea, it may be beneficial for weight loss to start replacing unhealthy sodas and high-caloric beverages with green tea. Drinking unhealthily can slow you down but if you opt for something beneficial such as green tea, its ingredients can help to speed up your metabolism. Some experts believe adding just three cups of green tea to your diet a day can increase your metabolism up to 10 percent.
3. Try Out Gym Machines – Although at first glance most gym machines look like more trouble than they’re worth, they actually can be the perfect tool to help you build lean muscles and rev up your metabolism. If you haven’t already, establishing healthy fitness habits in general is beneficial for your weight management.
4. Salmon is the Solution – If you’re a fan of fish and Dr. Auriemma has permitted you to eat them in moderation, you may want to try salmon. Chock full of healthy omega-3 fatty acids, salmon is an excellent source of protein that can help you burn fat while preventing unnecessary cravings.
5. Drink More Water – We’ve all been told to drink at least 8 glasses a day but it’s time we start listening to this advice. Drinking plenty of fluid throughout the day will help keep your metabolism running efficiently. When your body is dehydrated, your metabolism tends to slow while hunger and sluggishness increases. For an added boost, try adding fresh squeezed lemon juice to your water. Lemon’s digestive enzymes will work hand-in-hand in powering up your metabolism.

Our metabolism plays an essential role when it comes to weight management, so it’s important we take the time to make sure it’s working efficiently and keeping us energized throughout the day. However, make sure to consult Dr. Auriemma before adding any new foods to your medical weight loss program.

Frequently engaging in physical activity is without a doubt beneficial to your medical weight loss program. It helps with weight management, boosts heart health and possibly even increases your life expectancy. A recent study shows that jogging for approximately one to two-and-a-half hours over the course of a week can increase life expectancy for men by 6.2 years and women by 5.6 years.

This research does not necessarily prove that jogging will in fact help you live longer, but it definitely provides us with some added motivation to ramp up our physical fitness. According to additional research, jogging isn’t the only form of physical activity that can potentially increase longevity.

Here are several other studies that link fitness to increased life expectancy.

Stairway to Longevity

• If you are looking to increase weight loss and cut your risk of prematurely dying by 15 percent, a small Swiss study suggested taking the stairs. This study revealed that sedentary people who switched from using elevators or escalators to taking the stairs reduced their risk of prematurely dying.
• In addition to this research, a Harvard Alumni Health Study found that if you climb 35 or more flights of stairs each week, you can significantly increase longevity in comparison to those who only climb 10 stories or less each week.

Cycle for Life

• Ever wondered what road cyclists are pedaling so fast for? In addition to maintaining a toned backside and burning hundreds of calories, a study focusing on Copenhagen cyclists found that biking at fast speeds can possibly increase your lifespan. Researchers found men who pedaled the fastest are able to live an average of five years longer than their slower counterparts, while the fastest women were able to live four years longer.

Swim for Less Risks

• Swimming is an excellent source of physical activity for weight loss. The buoyancy of water can help you perform resistance exercises you otherwise aren’t able to on land. In addition to supporting weight management a 2009 longitudinal study found that men who swim on a regular basis live longer than men who are sedentary or walkers and runners.

So, what does this research mean?

Engaging in these physical activities may not win you the longest living person award, but they can at least help improve your overall health and help you maintain weight loss efforts during your medical weight loss program. At the very least, you will have increased your stamina for physical activity while developing a healthier lifestyle–both of which are good news for your weight loss journey.

Although some people suffering from obesity turn to medical weight loss as a means to help them lose weight so they can start living healthier lives, there is still a percentage of people who feel driven to lose weight because of society’s negative perceptions of what it means to be “fat.”

The beauty magazine polled nearly 2000 women ages 18 to 40 asking them to envision a female stranger who was either overweight or thin. Participants were instructed to choose either the words ambitious or lazy to describe the woman in each image. Though participants were also permitted to apply the term neither, less than 50 percent chose to do so. Results of the poll were as follows:

The participants were six times more likely to label an unnamed overweight woman as slow over her unnamed thin counterpart as well as…

• Seven times more likely to call the overweight woman undisciplined
• Nine times more likely to call her sloppy
• And eleven times more likely to call her lazy

On the other hand, participants were two times more likely to call the unnamed thin woman mean and controlling when compared to the overweight woman, and four times more likely to call her vain and self-centered when compared to the overweight woman.

The interesting aspect of this poll is not that women of opposite sizes are likely to name call each other, but that overweight women are just as likely, if not more likely than thin woman to stereotype other overweight women.

Although this poll cannot account for every females’ opinion on weight and size, it does help shed light on the fact that body weight does have the potential to negatively affect how women are perceived– which in turn can hurt them both emotionally and financially.

Even the positive qualities the poll revealed, such as overweight woman being seen as giving, still can negatively affect how women who are not overweight are perceived.

As women and men who are suffering from being overweight, we need to learn to support each other during our weight loss journeys and try to break society’s misperceptions of weight stereotypes.

This poll wasn’t meant to offend, but to help shed more light on the true enemy—society’s belief system developed around weight. The enemy is not the thin woman or the overweight woman, but it is the way in which society has developed a belief system when it comes to weight and size. An expert goes on to say that this is not about warring factions among women—the fat versus the thin. Instead, it’s about how society has molded certain negative perceptions pertaining to different weight sizes.

When you choose to partake in a medical weight loss program, your program goes beyond helping you to lose weight by providing you with ongoing support from the time you begin your journey to even after you’ve reached your weight loss goals. It is important during your weight loss journey to not fall prey to society’s harsh perceptions and stay focused on the big picture for a healthier and happier you.

The feeding tube administers the Bride’s 800 calories a day in the form of carbohydrate-free nutrients. The tube is expensive and is only administered for a little over a week, helping Brides to lose an extra ten pounds before their big day. However, what proponents of the diet do not explain is that losing weight so quickly is unsustainable—you will gain it back! While losing weight through an extreme method like this may produce similar results to a medical weight loss program, a feeding tube does not offer the behavioral support that you will receive when losing weight at a weight loss center.

Unlike fad diets, medical weight loss programs focus on helping you to achieve long term weight loss. Weight loss is achieved at a healthy pace by focusing on increased nutrition and physical activity, but one of the most important aspects of medical weight loss is the support you will receive to maintain the weight loss long term.

Fad diets can be tempting. It is easy to think that once you lose the weight you will keep it off, but without the support and motivation that comes from a medical weight loss program it is hard to maintain weight loss.

If putting a tube through your nose makes you feel a bit squeamish, then good. Feeding tubes are designed to help those who are unable to eat for medical reasons, and are not intended to help you lose a few pounds.

Many people like to lose weight before an upcoming event, and weddings are no exceptions. However, with this type of fad diet the weight will be back before the honeymoon gets started. Naperville Bride’s that are looking to lose weight should think about their long term goals, in addition to the short term benefits of looking good for wedding photographs.

Diet and exercise—we constantly hear the two words used in conjunction when people talk about losing weight and staying healthy. But could the amount of exercise we do actually have a direct link within our brains to the amount and kinds of food we eat? According to recent studies, exercise affects how regions of our brains respond to the sight of food, changing our appetites after exercise. In other words, when undergoing medical weight loss in Naperville, the amount of exercise you do, as well as some other biological factors in your body, could directly impact your dietary desires and habits.

In one study, volunteers were split into two groups. One group was subjected to vigorous physical activity—riding stationary bikes for an hour—while the other group spent the hour sitting quietly. Afterwards, they settled onto M.R.I. tables and watched as a sequence of pictures, mostly of different kinds of food, flashed by on computer screens.

In the subjects who rested for an hour, the parts of the brain known as the food-reward system lit up like a Christmas tree, particularly when they were shown fatty or high-sugar items. In contrast, those who had worked for an hour showed a significantly lower interest in any kind of food. Not even a greasy cheeseburger could prompt their food-reward systems to perk up.

The results seem straightforward enough: exercise will help you avoid overeating by directly reducing your appetite. Yet, all of this study’s participants were fit 20-somethings, able to engage in an hour-long bike ride without difficulty. How might overweight people respond to a similar study?

Unfortunately, not as positively. Another study required 34 overweight men and women to participate in an exercise program in which they burned about 500 calories in daily workouts, five days per week. The subjects were allowed to eat freely throughout the experiment. While 20 of the 34 had lost weight after twelve weeks, the other 14 experienced very little change. These 14 exhibited the highest food-reward responses prior to the experiment and actually had higher responses three months after the beginning of the study, while the food-reward responses of the 20 who lost weight stayed at relatively unenthusiastic levels after exercise.

What this means is that, though exercise definitely affects the food-reward regions of your brain in some way, the effects may be different based on who you are. Not all overweight people get the urge to gorge every time they work out, but results do seem to suggest that exercise has a lower chance of impacting food desire in those who are already fit. One complicating factor may also be the amount and difficulty of exercise—a lengthy, strenuous workout appears to have a bigger impact on lowering your desire for food.

What this doesn’t mean is that you should skip exercise for fear of overeating. Getting fit will reduce your chances of feeling voracious after exercise, so the goal is to resist those bad impulses while working to get in better shape. These studies could mean good news for the future, as experts believe that research into these topics could eventually help tailor exercise programs to individuals as a means of appetite control. Until then, stick with diet and exercise, and talk to Dr. Auriemma about the most effective and healthy ways for you to lose weight.

esire to eat

Massages are in fact an alternative form of medical care. A massage is any pressing, rubbing or manipulation of the skin, underlying muscles, ligaments and tendons. The benefits of a massage don’t have to stop with the fact that they make you feel incredible afterwards, there are specific types of massages intended to help different parts of the body depending on what needs attention. Here are four common types of massages that help to can provide you with numerous health benefits.

• Swedish massage – A Swedish massage is one of the most common massage techniques employed by massage therapists today. This massage exhibits gentle and soothing long strokes of the body. Sometimes, vibration and tapping are also employed to help you relax and energize. This type of massage is most often offered at spas designated to relaxation and rejuvenation.
• Deep-tissue massage – In order to reach deep layers of muscle and tissue, slow and steady pressures of touch are applied to areas of the body. This type of massage can sometimes get intense and possibly feel a slight bit uncomfortable; however, this is necessary in order to heal muscle damages acquired as a result of an injury.
• Sports massage – This type of massage is targeted more towards sports related injuries. Mainly this massage technique is used to not only treat but prevent athletic injuries.
• Trigger point massage – Over time, some muscles in the body tend to tighten and stay that way—the trigger point massage technique is a focused massage that manipulates trigger point areas on the body.

Now on to the benefits—massage is considered an alternative but sometimes complimentary form of medical care. Depending on certain medical issues, massage can be combined with your medical weight loss program to help your relax and reduce your stress levels.

If a massage ends up being just what your doctor ordered here are some of the ways massages can help benefit you:

• Stress relief
• Depression relief
• Anxiety relief
• Pain and stiff joints
• Blood pressure management
• Immune support

These are just a few of the ways massages can benefit you as you’re trying to lose weight. Remember, some diseases and conditions are not suited for massage treatment so speak with Center for Health and Nutrition’s medical team today to see if massage is right for you.

For decades, aerobic exercises such as running or cycling have remained the champions at raising heart and breathing rates and coined by scientist as the golden standard for maximum health benefits and weight loss. In fact, the only thing that has changed about aerobic exercise over the years would probably be the clothes—no more awful sweat headbands and leg warmers for today’s exercise fiends.

Yoga seemed to be closing in on aerobic exercising for a short period of time, but more and more people are turning in their yoga mats and opting for more intense workouts like kickboxing or spinning. If people can’t physically see the inches dropped from their waistlines in the mirror after a yoga class, then it must not be helping.

This mentality could cause people to lose out on several life-enhancing benefits that yoga has to offer. If you are undergoing a medical weight loss in Naperville, it’s important to understand the health benefits yoga can provide you before you decide to throw in the towel with the rest of the world.

As with any type of exercise, you’re only going to get out of your workouts what you put in. Many people feel yoga isn’t challenging their bodies enough in order for them to lose weight, but the fact is that yoga is all about pushing yourself farther each time and that’s hard to do without an exercise instructor standing behind you yelling at you to do so. You won’t find any hardcore, loud motivation in the yoga room, but you will find support and encouragement.

It is important to regularly attend a yoga class if you are looking to see results and help yourself lose weight on a consistent basis. Work with your instructors and pay attention to every little bit of information they provide you with. Making sure you are encompassing every aspect of a yoga class will help you get the most of out of it in order to help make a difference in your overall weight and health.

Here are just a few benefits yoga can provide you, if you let it:

• Improved lung capacity and breathing ability
• Stress management
• Improved mood and mental rejuvenation
• Enhanced posture, core strength and overall balance

Many critics believe yoga can’t provide people with the benefits normal exercise and strength training can when in fact, it can and maybe even in a more uniform way. Yoga is considered a form of functional fitness and in many ways provides a more balanced approach to those interested in strength training. Here are some strength training benefits yoga can provide you:

• Regular yoga practice can help reduce your risk of injury and condition your body to perform better at everyday functions such as sitting, walking, bending and lifting.
• Yoga has the ability to tone muscles from every part of the body in a way that balances the muscles with each other. In contrast, weight training normally deals with isolating certain muscles groups during one time period.
• Yoga can increase muscle endurance because of its requirement to hold certain poses for periods of time and then repeating the exercise throughout the workout.

There are several different types of yoga classes depending on what your personal interests are. Some classes focus more so on the spiritual and physical elements like Kundalini yoga. Those who are more interested in a real fitness workout might like to try Power and Ashtanga yoga instead. This type of yoga involves little meditation but does encompass a high level of intensity and flow within routines creating a more holistic approach to a good workout.

With yoga YOU are in control of your progress, so it’s up to you to give your body a workout it deserves. Yoga may be the underdog still, but you can’t deny the numerous health benefits yoga can give your mind, body and soul.

The study required participants to only sleep for approximately six hours a night while being subjected to shifting sleep-wake cycles over the course of a year. Researchers discovered participants developed higher blood sugar levels and lower resting “metabolic rates,” a term that defines how quickly your body burns calories for energy. Unfortunately for those who are sleep deprived, elevated blood sugar levels can potentially lead to diabetes and low resting metabolic rates can potentially lead to obesity.

Previous research has already proven that people who work night shifts or who continually don’t get enough sleep have high fat levels in their blood and therefor are more likely to be obese or have type 2 diabetes. For this study, the participants saw a decrease in metabolic rates once their sleep was reduced to about six hours a night—this decrease in metabolic rate was enough to amount to approximately ten added pounds over the course of one year.

The good news for those who do have jobs that require them to work nights shifts or travel the world on a consistent basis is that they have the ability to compensate for their changes with their body clock.

Because your schedule may change often, don’t only focus on controlling your sleep and body clock schedule from day to day but also your eating schedule. Timing your meals appropriately can help you avoid eating when your gut is not ready to process food.

It’s important to try and get a good night’s sleep regardless of your work schedule but sometimes that’s easier said than done. Getting proper sleep and managing your body clock can help you reduce your risk of obesity and diabetes—but before you try and alter your sleeping and eating schedules, it’s important to consult your weight loss doctor, Dr. Auriemma to see what modifications are right for you according to your individual weight loss plan.

Though often considered to be a grain, buckwheat is actually a type of seed. It comes from the broadleaf plant, which is similar to rhubarb. This distinction makes buckwheat a fantastic alternative to traditional forms of grains and starches that we commonly use during dinner, such as rice, millet, wheat and corn.

Roasted buckwheat seeds are a dietary staple in Eastern Europe, but they can also be cooked a number of other ways to accommodate different taste preferences. Buckwheat is often even turned into a type of noodle, offering a healthier alternative to traditional pasta.

Buckwheat is not considered a superfood for its versatile taste. The combination of proteins and amino acids in this seed make buckwheat a leading option for lowering your cholesterol. Buckwheat also ranks low on the glycemic scale, making it a healthier option for those controlling their blood sugar levels when compared to rice or corn. So, if you are looking for a new ingredient to spice up your dinner plate, buckwheat may be a beneficial option for you.

When you are doing a push-up it is important to keep your back straight. Many people hunch their shoulders and allow their chest and stomach to sag towards the floor as they are doing push-ups. However, this will actually make the activity more difficult. Instead of working against your weight, maintaining proper form will allow the different parts of your body to work in cohesion to attain the best results.

To do a push-up, lay down on your stomach with the palms of your hands positioned flat on the floor near your shoulders. As you push up, your arms should become straight but your elbows should never lock. When you lower your body, keeping your back straight and your stomach and chest off of the floor, your arms should return to a 90-degree angle.

If you find that doing a push-up with your legs extended straight is too difficult, then bend your legs and balance on your knees. It is better to do a push-up from your knees than it is to lose proper form.

Does concentrating on your form help you do more push-ups? Let us know how many you can do!